No Rational Minds

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Quote of the Day

Mayor Wilson and Chief Barnes repeatedly mentioned efforts to reduce ‘gun violence’. That typically translates to more gun control measures against law-abiding adults including the 112,500 King County residents who have valid concealed pistol licenses. They haven’t hurt anybody. Yet, instead of acknowledging that the problem is with criminals, including juveniles whose parents should be asked why their kid is at the Seattle Center shooting people, we hear about something called ‘gun violence reduction.’ But you’re not going to reduce gun-related violence by penalizing the wrong people, and Seattle’s leaders must keep that in mind.

Andrew Gottlieb
CCRKBA Executive Director
July 27, 2026
CCRKBA: SEATTLE DOESN’T HAVE A GUN PROBLEM, IT HAS A CRIME PROBLEM

Emphasis added.

“Must”? As if.

Seattle’s leaders won’t even have that thought cross their minds. They are all about the tools rather than the person. They even have a complete ban on the carry of any spring gun, air gun, sling or slingshot in, upon or onto any public place. You can (with a CWP) be legally carrying a .44 Magnum and could be charged with the carrying of a slingshot in the trunk of your car.

Seattle leaders don’t have rational minds.

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9 thoughts on “No Rational Minds”

  1. Actually on this one I have detailed knowledge of the approach, and no, it’s not about the guns at all, actually. The focus on the program CM Rivera is trying to get implemented (and that Wilson is now trying to cozy up to) is called “focused deterrence” and is specifically about targeting the small percentage of people in the population who do most of the violence, using a carrot and stick approach: they’re on the one hand encouraged and guided to take advantage of services available to get them out of The Life and into a situation that doesn’t use violence to solve problems, and if that doesn’t work it directly targets them for very personal attention from the police. The latter approach also includes work to target their friends, so that everybody around them understands they have a big target on their forehead and any involvement with them will get similar treatment from the police.

    https://council.seattle.gov/2026/06/08/councilmember-rivera-convenes-city-leaders-to-learn-about-gun-violence-reduction-approach-that-has-succeeded-in-other-us-cities/

    https://nnscommunities.org/

    None of it in any way gets into gun control, it’s all about addressing the social origins of violence, not the tools.

    It’s exactly what Gottlieb is asking for and every gun owner should be glad to see happening, and should support.

    • If implemented, it will most likely get canceled because the targeted group will end up being racist, and therefore problematic, as facts and reality so often are.

      • Unlikely. People in Seattle are pretty fed up, particularly on Aurora and downtown, and they’re getting over the whole “OMG you can’t target specific people!” thing. I’m trying to get ahold of Gottlieb and see if he wants to be involved. It’d be great to have “both sides” working towards the common goal of reducing violence in a way that takes guns out of the equation and makes real progress possible.

    • That sounds reasonable. But Seattle history has been all about the guns. Their words are about “gun violence,” not violence in general. Hence, I remain skeptical.

      Thanks for the additional information.

      • True, there’s definitely a form of gun control Tourette’s among liberals, particularly when you have a mass shooting like at Seattle Center. But it hasn’t been working, everybody knows it’s not working, and the Philadelphia model definitely has. CM Rivera is very motivated to implement something that actually works, and could use the support of the pro gun community to really give it some gas. Not only would it be an opportunity to make progress on violence reduction, but it would also help steer the conversation away from guns and towards the actual people doing the violence.

  2. I remember a wonderful quote to the effect that advocating gun control to reduce violence is like getting yourself castrated because your neighbors have too many kids.

    It also feels a lot like the classic argument for a 21 year age requirement for drinking alcohol: to reduce drinking among teenagers in particular those under 18.

    • I like to use a similar analogy:

      “Gun control” is like this: Suppose packs of feral dogs are roaming the area, mauling and killing the neighborhood cats. The proposed solution is to de-claw the cats “for their own safety.”

      (Note: To my knowledge, that’s a completely original quote by me. If you like it, feel free to repeat and use it, with my blessing.)

      • That’s a good analogy. Those claws — and fangs are dangerous and we want our cats to be safe.

        I always compared classical gun control to having a problem of coyotes killing and eating sheep, so the solution is to defang the canids in the region, and doing it by defanging any canid found in the region found there between 8 am and 5 pm.

        Another example I’ve heard is when teens are speeding on the road around the reservoir, so we should reduce the speed limit on main street.

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